The ongoing development of data networks often involves incorporating additional, demand-responsive functionality and/or capacity into networking equipment in order to enable greater connectivity and flexibility. These ends are pursued in part by increasing the number of functional modules included in a network node and/or the capacity of a particular node function (e.g., switching, routing, etc.) by increasing the number of components that contribute to the functional capacity. However, as the number of modules and/or components increases, power supply management issues become more complex in view of competing demands for efficiency, redundancy and sufficiently high power.
For example, it is typically desirable to ensure a reliable power supply to heavily utilized information technology (IT) infrastructure nodes, while also managing efficiency and link stability. Known power distribution systems for networking equipment employ two power supplies that are arranged and operated to supply more power than is utilized at a given instant. The two power supplies are coupled such that each power supply provides some power to a combination of loads (e.g., the modules and/or components of a network node). If one power supply fails, the second power supply remains available to deliver power to the combination of loads. This power distribution system ensures that both power supplies are normally always active in order to provide redundancy and limit packet loss and/or link failures that may result from hard switching between power supplies. However, this power distribution system a number of problems. For example, it susceptible to brown-outs that are caused by rapid increases in demand because the power supplies are not responsive enough to closely track rapid demand changes. In turn, packets or even links can be lost. Conversely, when demand drops suddenly, the overall efficiency suffers because the power supplies are again not responsive enough to closely track demand changes.
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